Friday, November 27, 2009
technical difficulties....
alrighty. every time i think i've adjusted to the fact that most things don't work or are missing down here (and have almost started to enjoy....some of it), something else happens and i realize i'm full of crap and haven't adjusted whatsoever! right now it's the internet. it wasn't working so someone came in to fix it, but he broke it even worse, and now both the hostel and the base camp wireless signals aren't transmitting magical internet wavelengths (or whatever it is they do), and so poot (my little netbook computer, or in chilean spanish, computadita) can't get online anymore. and that's what i'm using for photos and my blog and all that goodness. so stand by. i'm working on being more patient and one way or another things will get fixed....in a week....or maybe two....hahaha! :) coke
Sunday, November 15, 2009
hola! comosta, cachai?
so my spanish is finally starting to progress.... one month into this trip and i'm finally starting to understand people, at least a little bit. also, it helps if i'm listening to the gringos speak spanish because they talk slower and have the same accent i do. i definitely don't understand most of the words but i'm starting to recognize the ones i hear a lot and once i figure out what they mean, i can slowly figure out the gist of what people are saying. helps if they use their hands a lot when they talk too..... as far as speaking spanish goes, i still totally suck. the cool thing is that i'm able to remember words a lot better. i had to mail a letter to the states so i looked up how to say 'i need to mail a letter' in spanish. the verb 'to mail' is enviar. and although i only used it once, i can still remember it! which may not sound like a big deal to all of you out there that can speak more than one language, but i have a hard enough time with english so it's pretty cool to see that i'm actually remembering some of the stuff i'm learning! paul told me about a website, freerice.com. you can set it up so it gives you spanish words and you have to select what they mean. every right answer you get, they donate 10 grains of rice to hungry people. so you can learn new words and help people at the same time! rad! hoping that in another month, i'll actually be able to say some spanish or at least get over the fear of not being able to understand anything. it's really easy to say 'i don't understand' and then realize that i wasn't even trying to catch any of the words they're saying. every day i get a little bit better.....
one of the funniest things i'm figuring out is how abbreviated all the spanish is. i was shocked when i got down here and couldn't understand anything, because i really did study before i left and i thought i knew at least some basic vocabulary and sayings. what i've come to realize is that no one here speaks the same spanish i was learning. so a great example is 'como estas'. for those of you non-spanish speaking folks, that means 'how are you'. but here they don't say 'como estas'. they say 'comosta'. all of the words run together so you can't tell that there's more than one word spoken and they really don't like s here so any word that ends in s is abbreviated. sometimes they just say 'como' and somehow you're supposed to know that they're actually saying 'como estas'. and that's just one example..... they also like to throw in random words. all of the girls say cachai. it's slang that sorta translates into 'you know' and it pretty much takes the place of 'like' if you're a valley girl. so if you walk behind a group of girls you'll hear blah blah cachai blah blah blah cachai blah cachai blah blah blah cachai. guys use a slightly more interesting one. they like to end their sentences with 'huevon'. now, anyone that's ever had huevos rancheros (yum!!!) knows that huevo is spanish for egg. here, huevo also refers to a part of the male anatomy that closely resembles an egg. huevon can mean a lot of things - if you call your friend a huevon, you're calling him your buddy. if you call your enemy a huevon, you're calling him a really dirty word. and if you throw the word huevon onto the end of all of your sentences, you're just using the male version of the word cachai. as you can tell, i have yet to learn any spanish that actually means anything, but i'm totally learning all of my chilean slang, cachai?
i could go on and on - there's all sorts of interesting things i'm picking up. but it's late and tomorrow is my friday and then i've got two days off, woop woop! so till then, chao (they don't ever say adios here - only chao). or as a lot of people like to say, chao chao because really why would you only want to say goodbye once? so chao chao my friends - see you on the flipside! :)
one of the funniest things i'm figuring out is how abbreviated all the spanish is. i was shocked when i got down here and couldn't understand anything, because i really did study before i left and i thought i knew at least some basic vocabulary and sayings. what i've come to realize is that no one here speaks the same spanish i was learning. so a great example is 'como estas'. for those of you non-spanish speaking folks, that means 'how are you'. but here they don't say 'como estas'. they say 'comosta'. all of the words run together so you can't tell that there's more than one word spoken and they really don't like s here so any word that ends in s is abbreviated. sometimes they just say 'como' and somehow you're supposed to know that they're actually saying 'como estas'. and that's just one example..... they also like to throw in random words. all of the girls say cachai. it's slang that sorta translates into 'you know' and it pretty much takes the place of 'like' if you're a valley girl. so if you walk behind a group of girls you'll hear blah blah cachai blah blah blah cachai blah cachai blah blah blah cachai. guys use a slightly more interesting one. they like to end their sentences with 'huevon'. now, anyone that's ever had huevos rancheros (yum!!!) knows that huevo is spanish for egg. here, huevo also refers to a part of the male anatomy that closely resembles an egg. huevon can mean a lot of things - if you call your friend a huevon, you're calling him your buddy. if you call your enemy a huevon, you're calling him a really dirty word. and if you throw the word huevon onto the end of all of your sentences, you're just using the male version of the word cachai. as you can tell, i have yet to learn any spanish that actually means anything, but i'm totally learning all of my chilean slang, cachai?
i could go on and on - there's all sorts of interesting things i'm picking up. but it's late and tomorrow is my friday and then i've got two days off, woop woop! so till then, chao (they don't ever say adios here - only chao). or as a lot of people like to say, chao chao because really why would you only want to say goodbye once? so chao chao my friends - see you on the flipside! :)
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Torres del Paine part dos.....
ok so apparently moving to south america has done nothing to change the fact that i lag on writing blog entries. and here i thought i'd arrive here and all of my bad habits would disappear.... oh well! so anyway, we arrived at Los Cuernos and spent the night there. we were super bummed that we'd brought our own food for dinner there - they were cooking fish that they'd caught at 3am that morning in one of the lakes (or so the story went) and it smelled AMAZING. the next morning we got up and had breakfast in one of the most amazing breakfast spots i've ever seen. it's the photo down below. 
nice picnic table with Cuerno Este towering over us (can't see it in the photo) and the French Valley beckoning in the distance. combine that with the greatest oatmeal ever - instant oatmeal with tons of sugar and powdered milk, plus a cup of whole milk heated up and poured over the top (they sell milk in the juice-box thingies here and yup, i carried 6 of them on the trip. might as well have been carrying rocks but oh my heavens it made for the most incredible breakfasts ever and was totally worth the extra 15 pounds in my pack....). and then we took a bag of jam (jam is sold in bags, not jars here. so we took a bag of it, cut off a small corner, and stored it in a ziplock baggie so it didn't get sticky all over everything) and drizzled jam all over everything. and if that wasn't fancy enough, rustyn had made his unbelievable coffee concentrate - he takes a bag of ground coffee and adds a few cups of cold water to it. 24 hours later he strains all the liquid out which makes the most wonderful coffee concentrate. since it's cold brewed, it removes all of the acidity from the coffee and when you add it to hot water, sugar, and fresh milk.....oh so tasty. so we had the world's most amazing breakfast in the worlds most amazing breakfast location - life is good!! sarah, it really doesn't compare to cereal bars and no hot drink, but it's a close second, ha ha ha! after we ate, i rolled myself back to my tent, packed up, and hit the trail. this is our long day - 12 miles from camp to camp. but it's super cruisy and was a really enjoyable hike. after a bit we crested a hill, which was the last time we'd have a view of the french valley. i took a few pictures and said farewell (for now) to one of the most amazing places i've ever been to. and in response, the French Glacier let loose a massive avalanche down the face. sweetest farewell ever! 
on we went, enjoying the lowland scenery in front of us. i was bummed to be leaving the glaciated peaks but was stoked to check out the towers that Torres del Paine is named for (torres means towers in Spanish and paine means blue in Mapuche which is the language that the native people of Patagonia spoke). we discovered the shortcut that cut an hour or two off our time (yay) and laughed at all of the people wandering through the brush because they'd missed the shortcut and decided to make their own. eventually we got to Refugio Chileno where we were spending the night. ordinarily we'd push on and camp at Campamento Torres, one more hour up the trail, but we were a bit limited due to the tour and needed to stay at the refugios. really nice place and the people working there were awesome. i've worked in "wilderness" accommodation before and it can be really challenging and already some of the staff in the refugios were struggling to keep smiles on their faces. i think it's going to be a loooooooong season for them! but everyone working at Chileno was fabulous and we had a great night chatting with the other trekkers and sipping on instant asparagus soup. yum! the next morning our goal was to get up early and get to the base of Torres del Paine in order to hopefully see the towers turn red when the rising sun hits them. only problem is that the sun rises at 6am. and we were two hours from the base of the 
towers (which is why people try to camp at Campamento Torres - it's an hour closer to the towers but there isn't a refugio there). but hey i'm no stranger to alpine starts, so i was up at 3:30 packing up all of my gear and getting ready to hike up the trail! we fired our headlamps up only to find that annette's headlamp was almost out of batteries and she didn't have any replacements. but no hay problema, i just lit up the trail for both of us and off we went! it was a pitch black trail through a forest i couldn't see but the temperature was perfect and we spent the next hour and a half thoroughly enjoying ourselves. we could see the horizon getting lighter so we knew we had to hurry in order to catch the towers before sunrise. the last half hour of the trail to the base of the towers was really challenging. it's all big huge rocks and finding the trail was pretty interesting. but eventually we crested the top of the ridge and finally saw what we had hiked two hours at the asscrack of dawn to see......or at least we saw where the towers should have been, because in their place was a beautiful wall of fluffy white clouds! total whiteout up there! snow was blowing in and the wind was picking up and we decided to make ourselves cozy just in case the towers decided to peek through the clouds. we had brought our sleeping pads (exped synmat is just the thing for 6am tower visits, fyi) and bags so we climbed in and fired up our stove to make some hot tea
. we were nicely sheltered from the wind and had an incredible mini-breakfast of cookes, chocolate, and tea. suddenly the rocks to our right went from dark to bright red - sunrise! amazing how quickly the sun hit everything and although the towers never appeared, we did get to see the red color that they would have turned. and the sunrise was unreal - the red color through the clouds below made the entire sky look like it was on fire. took some of the coolest sunrise photos ever! after a bit the snow was picking up and we knew it was time to go. we packed up and headed down into a snowstorm. made going down pretty sketchy in some places because the snow was so slippery. but oh my goodness, descending the trail through the forest blanketed by a couple of inches of snow - one of the most beautiful sections of trail i've ever seen and definitely an experience i'll remember for the rest of my life. there's just nothing like the muted sound of the forest in a gentle snowstorm..... we got back to camp and had another fantastic oatmeal breakfast. i managed to spill half of mine on the ground, but the birds were oh so stoked that i was sharing with them! it was still snowing so we packed up and headed out. 15 minutes down the trail we dropped below the storm into gorgeous sunshine and traded out all of our warm snow clothes for t-shirts....still can't get over how quickly the weather can change in patagonia! we continued down to Hosteria Las Torres, which is the 4 star hotel in the park. it's 4 stars because there aren't any other hotels in the area to compare it to, but it's pretty darn fancy especially when you're standing there in muddy clothes after not showering for 5 days.... they have horses running wild through the area (ok so they're not
wild horses and i'm sure there are fences somewhere so they're not really running wild but it looks cool) and we enjoyed chilling in the sunshine for a couple of hours before boarding the shuttle which would take us back to the park entrance. even this was an adventure! right before the shuttle gets to the entrance, it crosses a small bridge. this bridge is really dodgy (let me quote the sign that's posted there: Attention to all vehicles. Bad condition bridge, please let all passengers get out of the car, before crossing the bridge") so the shuttle stops to let all of the people out so we can walk over it before the shuttle goes across. then the shuttle takes 15 minutes to cross it - the shuttle has literally one inch clearance on either side and they go REALLY slow so that they don't nick the side and send the whole thing collapsing into the river below. no one will replace the bridge because this area of the park is on private land and the park wants the land owners to pay for a new bridge and they want the park to pay for it, so no one pays for it and eventually someone will be going for an unpleasant swim. but hey, it's exciting. after that we loaded up on our bus and had a lovely, though smelly, ride home. and that dear friends was the 'W' in Torres del Paine! one of the greatest treks i've had the privilege to do and one that i will be getting back on as soon as possible. rain, snow, sun, and wind every day (and often every hour)! it's pretty odd camping at the refugios because it's not really camping (or at least not really your typical backpacking camping) but you can do the whole thing at free camps which lack the hostels, flush toilets, cold beer, and crowds, which is a little bit more my style (ok so the cold beer is totally my style but....you know what i mean). my next goal is to the the entire circuit - it's a big 60-90 mile (depending on your route) circle around the park that incorporates the 'w' in the bottom of the circle. the top part of the circuit is incredibly remote and provides a nice contrast to the more heavily traveled 'w'. 
i'd love to solo the trek; i really feel like i need a week to go out and challenge myself and sort the happenings of the last month out in my head....nothing like a trip into the wilderness to do just that. don't worry mom, it's totally safe! hope you all enjoyed the story and pictures - more to come! and the trail stays in brilliant shape through april so if any of you feel like coming down, i know of someone who would love to trek it again with you! hope everyone is well - till next time, enjoy life no matter what it brings and i'll see ya on the flipside! :) coke
nice picnic table with Cuerno Este towering over us (can't see it in the photo) and the French Valley beckoning in the distance. combine that with the greatest oatmeal ever - instant oatmeal with tons of sugar and powdered milk, plus a cup of whole milk heated up and poured over the top (they sell milk in the juice-box thingies here and yup, i carried 6 of them on the trip. might as well have been carrying rocks but oh my heavens it made for the most incredible breakfasts ever and was totally worth the extra 15 pounds in my pack....). and then we took a bag of jam (jam is sold in bags, not jars here. so we took a bag of it, cut off a small corner, and stored it in a ziplock baggie so it didn't get sticky all over everything) and drizzled jam all over everything. and if that wasn't fancy enough, rustyn had made his unbelievable coffee concentrate - he takes a bag of ground coffee and adds a few cups of cold water to it. 24 hours later he strains all the liquid out which makes the most wonderful coffee concentrate. since it's cold brewed, it removes all of the acidity from the coffee and when you add it to hot water, sugar, and fresh milk.....oh so tasty. so we had the world's most amazing breakfast in the worlds most amazing breakfast location - life is good!! sarah, it really doesn't compare to cereal bars and no hot drink, but it's a close second, ha ha ha! after we ate, i rolled myself back to my tent, packed up, and hit the trail. this is our long day - 12 miles from camp to camp. but it's super cruisy and was a really enjoyable hike. after a bit we crested a hill, which was the last time we'd have a view of the french valley. i took a few pictures and said farewell (for now) to one of the most amazing places i've ever been to. and in response, the French Glacier let loose a massive avalanche down the face. sweetest farewell ever! 
on we went, enjoying the lowland scenery in front of us. i was bummed to be leaving the glaciated peaks but was stoked to check out the towers that Torres del Paine is named for (torres means towers in Spanish and paine means blue in Mapuche which is the language that the native people of Patagonia spoke). we discovered the shortcut that cut an hour or two off our time (yay) and laughed at all of the people wandering through the brush because they'd missed the shortcut and decided to make their own. eventually we got to Refugio Chileno where we were spending the night. ordinarily we'd push on and camp at Campamento Torres, one more hour up the trail, but we were a bit limited due to the tour and needed to stay at the refugios. really nice place and the people working there were awesome. i've worked in "wilderness" accommodation before and it can be really challenging and already some of the staff in the refugios were struggling to keep smiles on their faces. i think it's going to be a loooooooong season for them! but everyone working at Chileno was fabulous and we had a great night chatting with the other trekkers and sipping on instant asparagus soup. yum! the next morning our goal was to get up early and get to the base of Torres del Paine in order to hopefully see the towers turn red when the rising sun hits them. only problem is that the sun rises at 6am. and we were two hours from the base of the 
towers (which is why people try to camp at Campamento Torres - it's an hour closer to the towers but there isn't a refugio there). but hey i'm no stranger to alpine starts, so i was up at 3:30 packing up all of my gear and getting ready to hike up the trail! we fired our headlamps up only to find that annette's headlamp was almost out of batteries and she didn't have any replacements. but no hay problema, i just lit up the trail for both of us and off we went! it was a pitch black trail through a forest i couldn't see but the temperature was perfect and we spent the next hour and a half thoroughly enjoying ourselves. we could see the horizon getting lighter so we knew we had to hurry in order to catch the towers before sunrise. the last half hour of the trail to the base of the towers was really challenging. it's all big huge rocks and finding the trail was pretty interesting. but eventually we crested the top of the ridge and finally saw what we had hiked two hours at the asscrack of dawn to see......or at least we saw where the towers should have been, because in their place was a beautiful wall of fluffy white clouds! total whiteout up there! snow was blowing in and the wind was picking up and we decided to make ourselves cozy just in case the towers decided to peek through the clouds. we had brought our sleeping pads (exped synmat is just the thing for 6am tower visits, fyi) and bags so we climbed in and fired up our stove to make some hot tea
. we were nicely sheltered from the wind and had an incredible mini-breakfast of cookes, chocolate, and tea. suddenly the rocks to our right went from dark to bright red - sunrise! amazing how quickly the sun hit everything and although the towers never appeared, we did get to see the red color that they would have turned. and the sunrise was unreal - the red color through the clouds below made the entire sky look like it was on fire. took some of the coolest sunrise photos ever! after a bit the snow was picking up and we knew it was time to go. we packed up and headed down into a snowstorm. made going down pretty sketchy in some places because the snow was so slippery. but oh my goodness, descending the trail through the forest blanketed by a couple of inches of snow - one of the most beautiful sections of trail i've ever seen and definitely an experience i'll remember for the rest of my life. there's just nothing like the muted sound of the forest in a gentle snowstorm..... we got back to camp and had another fantastic oatmeal breakfast. i managed to spill half of mine on the ground, but the birds were oh so stoked that i was sharing with them! it was still snowing so we packed up and headed out. 15 minutes down the trail we dropped below the storm into gorgeous sunshine and traded out all of our warm snow clothes for t-shirts....still can't get over how quickly the weather can change in patagonia! we continued down to Hosteria Las Torres, which is the 4 star hotel in the park. it's 4 stars because there aren't any other hotels in the area to compare it to, but it's pretty darn fancy especially when you're standing there in muddy clothes after not showering for 5 days.... they have horses running wild through the area (ok so they're not
wild horses and i'm sure there are fences somewhere so they're not really running wild but it looks cool) and we enjoyed chilling in the sunshine for a couple of hours before boarding the shuttle which would take us back to the park entrance. even this was an adventure! right before the shuttle gets to the entrance, it crosses a small bridge. this bridge is really dodgy (let me quote the sign that's posted there: Attention to all vehicles. Bad condition bridge, please let all passengers get out of the car, before crossing the bridge") so the shuttle stops to let all of the people out so we can walk over it before the shuttle goes across. then the shuttle takes 15 minutes to cross it - the shuttle has literally one inch clearance on either side and they go REALLY slow so that they don't nick the side and send the whole thing collapsing into the river below. no one will replace the bridge because this area of the park is on private land and the park wants the land owners to pay for a new bridge and they want the park to pay for it, so no one pays for it and eventually someone will be going for an unpleasant swim. but hey, it's exciting. after that we loaded up on our bus and had a lovely, though smelly, ride home. and that dear friends was the 'W' in Torres del Paine! one of the greatest treks i've had the privilege to do and one that i will be getting back on as soon as possible. rain, snow, sun, and wind every day (and often every hour)! it's pretty odd camping at the refugios because it's not really camping (or at least not really your typical backpacking camping) but you can do the whole thing at free camps which lack the hostels, flush toilets, cold beer, and crowds, which is a little bit more my style (ok so the cold beer is totally my style but....you know what i mean). my next goal is to the the entire circuit - it's a big 60-90 mile (depending on your route) circle around the park that incorporates the 'w' in the bottom of the circle. the top part of the circuit is incredibly remote and provides a nice contrast to the more heavily traveled 'w'. 
i'd love to solo the trek; i really feel like i need a week to go out and challenge myself and sort the happenings of the last month out in my head....nothing like a trip into the wilderness to do just that. don't worry mom, it's totally safe! hope you all enjoyed the story and pictures - more to come! and the trail stays in brilliant shape through april so if any of you feel like coming down, i know of someone who would love to trek it again with you! hope everyone is well - till next time, enjoy life no matter what it brings and i'll see ya on the flipside! :) coke
Thursday, November 5, 2009
i'm back!
ahh
hh.....torres del paine! what an amazing place. we woke up last monday to a full on snow storm in natales. no hay problema, the weather in the park has nothing to do with the weather in town (we're 2 1/2 hours from the park). at 7:30am the bus pulled up and i got on. we stopped to pick up annette, who was on the erratic rock tour, from erratic rock II (our sister hostel in town). it kept snowing. i had a lovely nap on the bus, stopped for a cup of coffee at the tourist trap halfway to the park, napped a bit more, and finally we arrived at the park entrance! still snowing. drat. we paid our entrance fee ($30 US ouch! but at leas
t it supports the rest of the national parks in chile) and got back on the bus for another half hour until we reached Pudeto. still snowing. but gorgeous! the snow had blanketed everything and although we couldn't see much of the mountains around us, it was amazing nonetheless. after an hour, the catamaran arrived to pick us up. just before it arrived, it stopped snowing! the clouds were flying across the sky and in less than ten minutes, we had blue sky shining through. a few minutes after that we took off and headed across Lago Pehoe to Paine Grande. The sky kept clearing and in no time at all we were chilling out on the top of the boat, enjoying the perfect sunshine, and throwing snowballs off of the boat. the mountains were coming out of the clouds and it was stunning. the color of the lake is so turquoise, you'd think you 
were in a tropical paradise. only surrounded by snow covered hills! after a half hour on the boat, we arrived at Paine Grande. it's one of the refugios in the park (they are sorta like a hostel in the park - they look like fancy ski lodges and you can stay in dorm rooms and eat their tasty food....if you have like a million dollars to spend and aren't there to commune with nature). as soon as we got off, two condors flew right overhead! they have a wingspan of 9-10 feet - not small birds! we took advantage of their public shelter (it's a yurt with windows) to make some tasty lunch - crackers and avocados and cheese and capers! 
then we grabbed our stuff and headed towards Lago Grey. this is the lake that Glaciar Grey ends in. about two hours into the trek we finally got a glimpse of the lake. unreal!! the glacier is enormous - 28 km long - and is the southern terminus of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. where it meets up with the lake, it drops icebergs the size of houses into the lake. these float all the way down the lake until they wash up on shore (they're a lot smaller by that point). the lake is well named; it has so much sediment from the glacier suspended in it that you can't see more than a couple of inches down. another two hours and we were at camp. we stayed at Refugio Grey which is another of the ski lodge looking places (they have campgrounds next to them so you can camp in style if you want). what an amazing place to camp! we were right next to the lake and all these mini icebergs were washing up on shore. some were white and chunky looking and some were crystal clear and looked like blown glass. they looked good enough to eat, so i did! it was cold as all getout but that didn't stop me from grabbing a really beautiful one and snacking on it! 
thousand year old ice tastes soooooo good! we had a lovely night drinking wine (they sell it in the refugio) and sitting by the stove in the refugio and then i retired to my tent. a teeny bit cold right before sunrise, but altogether not bad. woke up in the morning and we decided to take a morning side trip further up the trail to Campamento Los Guardas. it's at a higher elevation so you can see out over the glacier - you can really get a feel for how massive it is. and if Glaciar Grey was the size of a matchstick, the Southern Patagonian Ice Field would be twice the size of your arm - it's unreal! we took heaps of photos of the glacier and the crevasses and then we headed back to
camp, packed up, and headed back to Paine Grande. at this point, we realized that Mauricio (the guide working for erratic rock) had injured his ankle and couldn't go on. so i turned into the guide! we spent the night at Paine Grande - the mountain hovers over the area, making you feel incredibly insignificant. it's sharp and jagged and the clouds linger on the very top of it and it's almost like you're in lord of the rings! the next morning we got up and moved into the Valle del Frances. which is officially maybe the most beautiful spot on the planet. at the mouth of the valley is the backside of Paine Grande, which holds the Glaciar del Frances. it's unreal. it's a massive hanging glacier that spreads out over the entire side of the mountain. sections of it collapse pretty frequently,
which triggers massive avalanches down the face. there was a lot of clouds obscuring the glacier so we couldn't see everything very clearly but we headed up the valley to see what else was there. after a few hours we arrived at Campamento Britanico, which is a camp for climbers attempting routes on the mountains surrounding us. they're beautiful - they're light granite on the bottom and dark sedimentary rock on the top. the sedimentary rock erodes much faster than the granite, leaving these hulking masses of granite topped by dark crowns. they're called the Cuernos del Paine - cuernos means horns, which is what the peaks end up looking like. as soon as we got up there, the clouds began to clear and we had the most impressive views of the mountains surrounding us. we headed back down the French Valley to see if the clouds over the French Glacier had cleared...and they had! got some impressive photos before the clouds came back in. we grabbed our gear and headed to Refugio Los Cuernos which sits on the shore of Lago Nordenskjold (i'll leave that one for you to try pronouncing), right under one of the most amazing mountains i've ever seen - Cuerno Este - and within sight of the mouth of the French Valley. and here friends, i leave you - it's way past my bedtime and i can't type anymore..... i'll try to get the rest of the tale written up tomorrow!!! till then, take care of you and i'll see ya on the flipside! :) coke
hh.....torres del paine! what an amazing place. we woke up last monday to a full on snow storm in natales. no hay problema, the weather in the park has nothing to do with the weather in town (we're 2 1/2 hours from the park). at 7:30am the bus pulled up and i got on. we stopped to pick up annette, who was on the erratic rock tour, from erratic rock II (our sister hostel in town). it kept snowing. i had a lovely nap on the bus, stopped for a cup of coffee at the tourist trap halfway to the park, napped a bit more, and finally we arrived at the park entrance! still snowing. drat. we paid our entrance fee ($30 US ouch! but at leas
t it supports the rest of the national parks in chile) and got back on the bus for another half hour until we reached Pudeto. still snowing. but gorgeous! the snow had blanketed everything and although we couldn't see much of the mountains around us, it was amazing nonetheless. after an hour, the catamaran arrived to pick us up. just before it arrived, it stopped snowing! the clouds were flying across the sky and in less than ten minutes, we had blue sky shining through. a few minutes after that we took off and headed across Lago Pehoe to Paine Grande. The sky kept clearing and in no time at all we were chilling out on the top of the boat, enjoying the perfect sunshine, and throwing snowballs off of the boat. the mountains were coming out of the clouds and it was stunning. the color of the lake is so turquoise, you'd think you 
were in a tropical paradise. only surrounded by snow covered hills! after a half hour on the boat, we arrived at Paine Grande. it's one of the refugios in the park (they are sorta like a hostel in the park - they look like fancy ski lodges and you can stay in dorm rooms and eat their tasty food....if you have like a million dollars to spend and aren't there to commune with nature). as soon as we got off, two condors flew right overhead! they have a wingspan of 9-10 feet - not small birds! we took advantage of their public shelter (it's a yurt with windows) to make some tasty lunch - crackers and avocados and cheese and capers! 
then we grabbed our stuff and headed towards Lago Grey. this is the lake that Glaciar Grey ends in. about two hours into the trek we finally got a glimpse of the lake. unreal!! the glacier is enormous - 28 km long - and is the southern terminus of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. where it meets up with the lake, it drops icebergs the size of houses into the lake. these float all the way down the lake until they wash up on shore (they're a lot smaller by that point). the lake is well named; it has so much sediment from the glacier suspended in it that you can't see more than a couple of inches down. another two hours and we were at camp. we stayed at Refugio Grey which is another of the ski lodge looking places (they have campgrounds next to them so you can camp in style if you want). what an amazing place to camp! we were right next to the lake and all these mini icebergs were washing up on shore. some were white and chunky looking and some were crystal clear and looked like blown glass. they looked good enough to eat, so i did! it was cold as all getout but that didn't stop me from grabbing a really beautiful one and snacking on it! 
thousand year old ice tastes soooooo good! we had a lovely night drinking wine (they sell it in the refugio) and sitting by the stove in the refugio and then i retired to my tent. a teeny bit cold right before sunrise, but altogether not bad. woke up in the morning and we decided to take a morning side trip further up the trail to Campamento Los Guardas. it's at a higher elevation so you can see out over the glacier - you can really get a feel for how massive it is. and if Glaciar Grey was the size of a matchstick, the Southern Patagonian Ice Field would be twice the size of your arm - it's unreal! we took heaps of photos of the glacier and the crevasses and then we headed back to
camp, packed up, and headed back to Paine Grande. at this point, we realized that Mauricio (the guide working for erratic rock) had injured his ankle and couldn't go on. so i turned into the guide! we spent the night at Paine Grande - the mountain hovers over the area, making you feel incredibly insignificant. it's sharp and jagged and the clouds linger on the very top of it and it's almost like you're in lord of the rings! the next morning we got up and moved into the Valle del Frances. which is officially maybe the most beautiful spot on the planet. at the mouth of the valley is the backside of Paine Grande, which holds the Glaciar del Frances. it's unreal. it's a massive hanging glacier that spreads out over the entire side of the mountain. sections of it collapse pretty frequently,
which triggers massive avalanches down the face. there was a lot of clouds obscuring the glacier so we couldn't see everything very clearly but we headed up the valley to see what else was there. after a few hours we arrived at Campamento Britanico, which is a camp for climbers attempting routes on the mountains surrounding us. they're beautiful - they're light granite on the bottom and dark sedimentary rock on the top. the sedimentary rock erodes much faster than the granite, leaving these hulking masses of granite topped by dark crowns. they're called the Cuernos del Paine - cuernos means horns, which is what the peaks end up looking like. as soon as we got up there, the clouds began to clear and we had the most impressive views of the mountains surrounding us. we headed back down the French Valley to see if the clouds over the French Glacier had cleared...and they had! got some impressive photos before the clouds came back in. we grabbed our gear and headed to Refugio Los Cuernos which sits on the shore of Lago Nordenskjold (i'll leave that one for you to try pronouncing), right under one of the most amazing mountains i've ever seen - Cuerno Este - and within sight of the mouth of the French Valley. and here friends, i leave you - it's way past my bedtime and i can't type anymore..... i'll try to get the rest of the tale written up tomorrow!!! till then, take care of you and i'll see ya on the flipside! :) coke
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